Ten percent of offenders scramble to find places to plug in bracelets, some cut them off, and local laws make it hard for released sex offenders to find housing - ByRiley Vetterkind (Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism) March 4, 2018

Offenders, many in rural areas, say they have been jailed due to technical problems with bracelets; some experts question value of lifetime monitoring - By Riley Vetterkind (Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism) March 4, 2018

Collateral damage occurs in any war, including America’s “War on Crime.” Ironically, our zealous efforts to keep communities safe may have actually destabilized and divided them. The vast expansion of the nation’s criminal

justice system over the past 40 years has produced a corresponding increase in the number of people with a criminal record. One recent study estimated that 65 million people — one in four adults in the United States — have a criminal record.2At the same time, the collateral consequences of conviction — specific legal restrictions, generalized discrimination and social stigma — have become more severe, more public and more permanent. These consequences affect virtually every aspect of human endeavor, including employment and licensing, housing, education, public benefits, credit and loans, immigration status, parental rights, interstate travel, and even volunteer opportunities. Collateral consequences can be a criminal defendant’s most serious punishment, permanently relegating a person to second-class status.

The obsession with background checking in recent years has made it all but impossible for a person with a criminal record to leave the past behind. An arrest alone can lead to permanent loss of opportunity. The primary legal mechanisms historically relied on to restore rights and status — executive pardon and judicial expungement — have atrophied or become less effective.

It is time to reverse this course. It is time to recognize that America’s infatuation with collateral consequences has produced unprecedented and unnecessary collateral damage to society and to the justice system. It is time to celebrate the magnificent human potential for growth and redemption. It is time to move from the era of collateral consequences to the era of restoration of rights and status.

NACDL recommends a broad national initiative to construct a legal infrastructure that will provide individuals with a criminal record with a clear path to equal opportunity. The principle that individuals have paid their debt to society when they have completed their court-imposed sentence should guide this initiative. At its core, this initiative must recognize that individuals who pay their debt are entitled to have their legal and social status fully restored.

Until recently, defense lawyers have not regarded avoiding and mitigating collateral consequences as part of their responsibility to the client. This has changed, in part because of court decisions recognizing collateral consequences as an integral part of the criminal case, and in part because of the increasing social and economic significance of collateral consequences themselves. As a result, in 2011 NACDL established a Task Force on Restoration of Rights and Status After Conviction to inquire into how existing restoration mechanisms are actually functioning and to determine how they can be improved. The Task Force conducted extensive hearings in six different major American cities in five distinct regions of the country over more than two years and took testimony from more than 150 witnesses. The result is this report and the following comprehensive recommendations for reform.

There will be over 1000 people on the GPS system in the next 18-24 months, growing steadily every year.

The Department of Corrections has about 10,300 employees with a budget of $1.28 billion a year.

There are currently 22,000 people incarcerated in Wisconsin.

This is good, it is about time that the taxpayers of Wisconsin know how their money is being spent in the largest spending department in the state. Currently there is no public documentation that is easily attained to show how, where and what for the money that is used for GPS monitoring.

A recent ruling in Federal Court
could change the way sex offenders are punished. The May 8th ruling
decided in favor of the defendant, Charles Goodwin, who was convicted
back in 1994 of lewd acts in Illinois.

Goodwin challenged his probationary restrictions that barred him from
internet use and won, "He was saying, I shouldn't have to do all of
these things," Fox 25 Legal analyst David Slane said. "I think it's the
first step in what may be a trend," added Slane.

Right now sex offenders are often given blanket restrictions and rules
on where they can live, work and spend time. Slane believes this may
soon change, so that the punishment will fit the crime, "If a sex
offender did not do something related to the internet for example,
you're probably not going to be able to restrict his access to the
internet," Slane added, "The courts seem to be saying, in the future,
there needs to be a connection between the two, or they are not going to
be able to restrict his (or her) access." Slane said this is only
applies in federal cases, but unless the Supreme court overturns it, it
may soon spread to lower courts. ..Source.. by Mark Taylor
Fox 25 News

State legislators are looking for ways to save money by improving
Wisconsin’s system for housing and monitoring released sex offenders.

By:
By Gilman Halsted, Wisconsin Public Radio, Superior Telegram

State legislators are looking for ways to save money by improving
Wisconsin’s system for housing and monitoring released sex offenders.

The
joint legislative audit committee plans to investigate the cost of
housing released sex offenders and tracking their whereabouts. The audit
will also assess the effectiveness of the community notification system
that alerts citizens that a sex offender is moving in to a
neighborhood.

Don Mogenson of Manitowoc told the committee that in
his community, the state is paying exorbitant rent to house offenders
and doing a poor job of alerting the public about changes in an
offender’s supervision status. He suggested the state put offenders on a
farm where they can earn their way back into society: “We need to get
these people into a productive life. Then maybe they can make a life for
themselves. Walking around and having somebody watch them is not a way
to make them productive.”

But the committee chair, Representative
Samantha Kerkman, says even rural residents have a “not in my backyard”
attitude about having sex offenders as neighbors: “When we have those
discussions, even in my rural district, about placement … Even if
they're in the middle of a cornfield in a farm, nobody wants them there
either.”

Senator Kathleen Vinehout says she hopes the audit will
produce solutions that previous legislatures have failed to come up
with.

“We have a lot of legislators over the years that have been
very concerned about sex offenders and we've added laws on top of laws
to try and deal with the problems; but maybe this is a good time for us
to look into it in detail and see if we're getting our money's worth.”

The Department of Corrections has asked for a $2 million increase in sex offender program funding over the next two years.

James Morgan and Aaron Hicks were convicted of violent sex crimes and served many years in prison.

Now
they are on parole, living in Madison neighborhoods, attending
treatment groups and wearing global positioning system (GPS) ankle
monitors — tracking that, under Wisconsin law, will continue for the
rest of their lives.

But
Morgan, Hicks and 11 other offenders interviewed for this report say
that Wisconsin’s GPS tracking system repeatedly fails, registering false
alerts and landing the offenders in jail although they have done
nothing wrong.

“There
are times when I’m afraid to leave whatever room I’m in, even to go to
the bathroom,” said Morgan, 53, who served 26 years in prison for sexual
assault and other crimes.

“I’m afraid an alert will go off and the police will show up at my door.”

On
July 31, Morgan stood in his Madison bedroom with a Wisconsin Center
for Investigative Journalism photographer. On several occasions, his GPS
monitor began flashing, indicating he was out of range, even though
Morgan was in his own home and well within boundaries determined by his
parole agent.

Offenders
and their advocates say GPS breakdowns waste taxpayers’ money with
unnecessary police work and lockups, and hamper offenders’ efforts to
restore relationships with their families and retain jobs.

Even
the people who make the GPS technology acknowledge that signals can be
lost due to weather conditions, tall buildings and car travel.

A
key legislator, the chairman of the Assembly Committee on Corrections,
said he was unaware of any problems with the state’s GPS monitoring
system. But he was concerned by the Center’s findings, and said that an
audit may be in order.

“Yes,
I think it would be proper to inquire about the accuracy and
effectiveness of our monitoring system if offenders are indeed
experiencing these problems,” said state Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay.

But
Bies, a former Door County sheriff’s deputy, added, “I really don’t
have a whole lot of sympathy” for sexual offenders and whatever
“inconvenience” they may have to endure.

As of February, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections was using GPS
technology to track 638 offenders. According to DOC spokeswoman Jackie
Guthrie, “The majority are sex offenders with a very small number being
offenders convicted of domestic violence or other violent crimes.” She
was unable to provide a breakdown.

And GPS monitoring in Wisconsin is projected to expand by nearly 50 percent over the next two years.

A
Wisconsin state law passed last April, set to take full effect in 2014,
allows judges to require GPS tracking for offenders who violate a
domestic abuse or harassment temporary restraining order or injunction.

Gov.
Scott Walker’s proposed budget recommends $10 million in new funding
for expanded use of GPS tracking in fiscal years 2014 and 2015 — to
monitor 783 individuals the first year and 939 the second year.

'Nothing's perfect'

Significant
concerns about the reliability of GPS tracking have arisen in at least
seven other states. The technology has been found both to sound alerts
in error and miss offenders’ transgressions when they do occur.

Last
September, an audit in Tennessee revealed massive oversights in the
state’s GPS offender tracking system. More than 80 percent of alerts
from GPS-monitored offenders “were not cleared or confirmed” by
corrections agents, including alerts triggered after individuals
appeared to enter prohibited areas such as parks and schools.

The
Wisconsin DOC insists its system, and the devices it leases from
Colorado-based Behavioral Interventions, or BI, are reliable.

“We
are not aware of any ‘problems’ with our GPS monitoring system, and
have several protocols in place to ensure that the integrity of our
system is maintained,” Guthrie wrote in an email.

BI
spokeswoman Monica Hook maintained that GPS technology is “a reliable
alternative to incarceration” and that millions of people have worn the
devices over the years.

Yet,
she conceded, “it’s a manmade device. There are certain things that we
safeguard against, but nothing’s perfect.” She said the Wisconsin DOC
has “discretion” to determine how to handle alerts.

The DOC rejected the Center’s request for records regarding its
protocols for dealing with dropped signals or false GPS alerts, saying
offenders could use this information to “defeat the monitoring device.”

Guthrie
said the agency does not keep statistics on how many alerts are
triggered for GPS offenders, and does not track how often these result
in offenders being incarcerated.

The DOC, she said, also has not conducted audits or quality reviews of its GPS program, which began operating in 2007.

Tracked
offenders wear anklets at all times. Those with older, two-piece models
must carry a portable GPS device that communicates with satellites and
sends data to a central monitoring center in Madison. One-piece models
include this device in the anklet. The DOC says the two-piece models are
being phased out.

If
an offender crosses into a restricted “exclusion zone,” an alert is
sent to the monitoring center, which can investigate the problem. “One
of the outcomes,” Guthrie said, “could be an apprehension or arrest.”

'You just want to give up'

In
all, the Center interviewed a dozen sex offenders, and one person
convicted of stalking, who complained of problems with their tracking
units.

Sam
Bratsven, convicted in 2001 of sexual assault of a child in Winnebago
County, says challenges with his GPS unit have cost him jobs. In one of
several discrimination complaints with the state Division of Equal
Rights, he even has evidence.

In
response to one such complaint, filed in 2011, an attorney for a
company that chose not to hire Bratsven for a particular job noted that
his two-hour application process was disrupted four to six times by his
GPS device. The attorney said this “indicate(d) a high level of
potential for disruption in any assignment where the applicant could be
placed.”

His attorney, Andrew Phillips, said the case was settled out of court to the “satisfaction of both parties.”

Matthew
Becker, convicted of sexual assaults in 2005 and 2007 in Winnebago
County, estimates he has been jailed six times due to problems with his
GPS equipment and that he has lost “thousands of dollars” in missed
work.

The Center was able to obtain some records on GPS alerts for
individual offenders. They show that Morgan and Hicks triggered multiple
alerts for “No GPS,” indicating their locations could not be tracked by
satellite. In May alone, Hicks triggered 206 “No GPS” alerts.

Records
show Morgan has been booked into Dane County Jail at least eight times
since June 2011, serving a total of 29 days in jail, all for violations
related to his GPS tracker.

In
each of these cases, Morgan argues the violations occurred because of
an innocent mistake, as when he went for a bike ride without bringing
along a hand-held device, or despite the fact that he was complying with
the rules.

For
instance, on Sept. 19, Morgan was jailed for four days because “he
failed to have a GPS signal” for much of a two-hour period. Morgan said
he was attending an approved University of Wisconsin-Madison class. His
English professor, Emily Auerbach, backs him up. “I know exactly where
he was” during the time in question, she said.

Hicks,
39, served 12 years for having intercourse with an unconscious woman.
Records show he has been booked into jail at least a dozen times since
April 2011 for violations related to his GPS monitor, spending a total
of 74 days behind bars.

Hicks
admits he forgot to bring his hand-held GPS tracker with him on two
occasions. He left it in his car when he entered a supermarket and left
it on a bus when traveling to work. But the other violations, he says,
were over lost signals and false alerts.

On
June 12, 2012, according to records obtained by his attorney, Hicks was
at his wife’s house, an approved location. He said he left his tracker
in an adjacent room, as he had done before without triggering alerts,
while he watched a basketball game on television and did not hear it
beep. He served a total of 51 days in jail, until after he signed an
agreement admitting he “did fail to comply with the rules and conditions
of GPS monitoring.”

“It’s
almost like taking on a new normal,” Hicks said in an interview from
the Dane County Jail in June, while jailed on this violation. “If you’re
trying to move on with your life, and you’ve got these barriers, you
just want to give up.”

Hicks’ attorney, Jessa Nicholson, thinks her client has done his best
to reintegrate but has been unfairly punished: “I’ve spoken with his
therapist, and she assessed him as posing no threat whatsoever.”

'Unworthy of life'

Now
Hicks works at Voices Beyond Bars, a Madison nonprofit that assists
former inmates. He said he does well at Madison Area Technical College,
where he attends classes. But last year, he missed a final essay for one
class because he was back in jail on a GPS violation. His grades
suffered, and he was placed on academic probation.

Morgan,
when not back in jail, lives with his elderly aunt on Madison’s north
side. He paints, often giving his work away to Madison charities. He
still takes a one-credit class at UW-Madison and works construction jobs
part time.

And
while Morgan acknowledges that his past actions have caused pain and
deserve punishment, he thinks being on GPS monitoring conveys that he is
“unworthy of life.” He said he hopes and prays “that I’m able to
continue to withstand this.”

Community notification of sex offenders moving into a neighborhood
have become so commonplace that police are scheduling fewer community
meetings.

It’s the police chief’s call whether or not to have
level three notification sex offender meetings. Superior Deputy Chief
Matt Markon says they don’t make the decision alone.

“We make a
decision on whether to have a community meeting with a group of people
that includes law enforcement, the local probation and parole office and
the sex offender specialist out of Spooner. That group meets monthly at
least to look at who is being released and what sort of notification
needs to be done.”

The notification levels range from level 1,
which would be law enforcement only to 3-plus. Three-plus would also
include schools, daycares and health facilities in the area, plus a
community meeting.

Sex Offender Registry Specialist Amy Jain in
Spooner covers 11 counties and some, like Douglas, have what she calls
TLPs or transitional living placement.

She says in areas like these, people are getting used to notifications that sex offenders will be living in their communities.

“We’ve
had meetings where registrants are released to a TLP in Superior and
about two people show up. Because they are so used to sex offenders or
SPNs being released into those homes that most often those community
members have already been to those meetings but they still do put a
notification in the paper when there is a release.”

Markon says the last community notification meeting held in Superior was Aug. 14.

Jain
says attendance at some of these meetings isn’t necessarily lower
because people don’t care, just that some residents are already familiar
with meetings held in their neighborhood.

“I think for example in
Douglas County, people aren’t showing up when registrants are being
released to the TLP because they have already heard it all,” Jain said.
“However, we had another one in Douglas County where 40 people showed up
because the registrant was being released to a part of Superior where
they weren’t used to sex offenders being released. I think it depends on
the conviction but it’s hard to say, it just depends on what the
community is used to.”

There are 106 non-incarcerated offenders in Douglas County, 47 of which are on supervision, and eight repeat offenders.

JEFFERSON - The City of Jefferson granted two exemptions to its new Sex Offender Residency Ordinance Thursday.

John
Sampe and Daniel Mc­William appeared before the new Sex Offender
Residence Board at the Jefferson Police Department to appeal a denial of
residency based on an ordinance passed in December that forbids
registered sex offenders from residing within 1,500 feet of schools or
other areas where children congregate.

The board granted both
men an exemption to the ordinance, allowing them to relocate only to the
specific address indicated in the appeal. Sampe will reside at 502 S.
Center Ave., while Mc­William will live at 216 E. Milwaukee St.

Jefferson's
ordinance was modeled after those already in affect in other cities. It
prevents a registered sex offender from establishing a temporary or
permanent residents within 1,500 feet of private or public schools;
public parks, parkways or parkland; recreational trails; public play
grounds; the public library; athletic fields used by children; licensed
daycare centers; specialized schools for children, including but not
limited to gymnastics academies, dance academies or music schools; and
children's group homes or foster homes.

Several exceptions
already are written into the ordinance to allow for an offender confined
to a jail within the prohibited area, an offender who established
residence in the area before the ordinance went into effect, or if the
gathering place opened after the offender established residence.

Sampe
and McWilliam filed the appeals last week, claiming they did not
present a danger to the public and that the ordinance prevents them from
settling down with their families.

Speaking to the board, Sampe
presented his criminal history, including the 1994 second-degree sexual
assault that placed him on the state's registered sex offender list, and
made his case for an allowance to live within a restricted area.

"It was not my choice to return to this county," Sampe said. "I have family up north, but I was court-ordered here."

"All I have ever wanted is not to be judged by my record, but my contribution to this family," Sampe continued.

He is a father of one and stepfather to two children with his fiancee.

"With your blessing, I will be able to raise my family in this wonderful community," he added.

Sampe's
family and friends, including his fiancée Victoria Liss, spoke in
testament to his character and questioned the applicability of the
ordinance.

"This ordinance is to protect the health and safety of children, but he is not a pedophile," said Liss.

Concerns
were raised during the public comment portion of the hearing about a
discrepancy between the history Sampe presented and the notification
that was sent to the neighborhood to which Sampe will relocate.

It was determined that concern regarded a juvenile case and could not be discussed in an open meeting.

Sampe's
exemption was granted by a unanimous vote of the board, and he was
given legal permission to reside at 502 Center Avenue immediately.

Daniel
McWilliam then addressed the board in regard to his appeal. He appears
on the sex offender registry following a second-degree sexual assault of
a child.

McWilliam, now 32, was 18 when he was convicted of
sexual contact with his girlfriend, whom he said he thought was 17, but
who turned out to be 15.

He served 10 years in prison following that crime.

"I have kept up on my registration, never failed to register once," said McWilliam.

McWilliam is employed at Master Mold in Johnson Creek, is married, and has two children.

"If
I am refused to live at 216 E. Milwaukee, it's tearing a family apart,"
he said. "I don't want any problems with any police officer in
Jefferson."

Concerns about children in the neighborhood were
raised by Cathy Radtke and Jody Lindemoen, who reside in the area and
were notified of McWilliam's presence via mailing by the Jefferson
Police Department.

"There are a lot of kids that walk there,"
said Radtke. "I realize that he's done his debt to society, but I just
want to be sure that our little corner of the world is safe."

"Milwaukee
Avenue is the walking bridge," said Lindemoen. "All of the kids from
West, and the middle school to the high school, use Milwaukee Avenue.
It's highly, highly, used. I think that they should find somewhere
else."

Sarah McWilliam, Daniel's sister, provided a character witness for the board.

"Dan
served 10 years in prison. He had time to think about it," she said.
"Since then, he hasn't had any trouble. He's done everything right since
then. I think that's he's grown up a lot."

The board granted
Mc­William's exemption unanimously, and he is permitted to reside at 216
E. Milwaukee Ave. effective immediately.

The Sampe and McWilliam
appeals were the first filed under the appeal process defined by the
Jefferson Sex Offender Residency Ordinance.

The Sex Offender Residence Board meets the final Thursday of every month to hear any filed appeals.

Justices Wrestle Over Allowing DNA Sampling at Time of Arrest

Published: February 26, 2013

WASHINGTON — About halfway through a Supreme Court argument on Tuesday over whether the police may take DNA samples from people they arrest, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. reflected on just how momentous the issue was.

“I think this is perhaps the most important criminal procedure case that
this court has heard in decades,” he said, adding: “This is what is at
stake: Lots of murders, lots of rapes that can be solved using this new
technology that involves a very minimal intrusion on personal privacy.”

“Why isn’t this the fingerprinting of the 21st century?” he asked.

But the value of such evidence to law enforcement was only one side of
the equation, Justice Antonin Scalia said after hearing that Maryland
had obtained 42 convictions based on DNA from people arrested there.

“Well, that’s really good,” Justice Scalia said. “I’ll bet you if you
conducted a lot of unreasonable searches and seizures, you’d get more
convictions, too. That proves absolutely nothing.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed to agree that the practice may run
afoul of the Fourth Amendment, which generally requires a warrant or
individualized suspicion before police may conduct a search. “This is a
very reliable tool,” she said, “but it’s not based on any kind of
suspicion of the individual who’s being subjected to it.”

The case arose from the collection of DNA in 2009 from Alonzo Jay King
Jr. after his arrest on assault charges in Wicomico County, Md. His DNA
profile, obtained by swabbing his cheek, matched evidence from a 2003
rape, and he was convicted of that crime. Last April, the Maryland Court
of Appeals ruled that a state law authorizing DNA collection from
people arrested but not yet convicted violated the Fourth Amendment.

In July, before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.issued a stay
of the lower court decision, saying that collecting DNA from people
accused of serious crimes is “an important feature of day-to-day law
enforcement practice in approximately half the states and the federal
government.”

Collecting DNA from people convicted of crimes was not at issue in the
case argued Tuesday, Maryland v. King, No. 12-207. The question was,
rather, whether the Fourth Amendment allowed collecting it from people
who have merely been arrested and so are presumed innocent.

The chief justice seemed wary of going too far, too fast. The Maryland
law, he said, is limited to people arrested for serious crimes. But
other laws are broader, and the state’s argument did not have an obvious
stopping point.

“Under your theory, there’s no reason you couldn’t undertake this
procedure with respect to anybody pulled over for a traffic violation?”
Chief Justice Roberts asked Katherine Winfree, the state’s chief deputy
attorney general. She said drivers might have a reasonable expectation
of privacy that people arrested for serious crimes do not.

She added that people under arrest lose an array of rights. Last year, the court ruled that they may be subjected to strip searches if admitted to a jail’s general population.

Justice Elena Kagan said there must be limits, saying an arrest would
not justify the search of an individual’s home for possible evidence of
an unrelated crime. She added that under the state’s theory, the law
enforcement interest in solving crimes could be used to justify
obtaining a DNA sample in many settings.

“Why don’t we do this for everybody who comes in for a driver’s license
because it’s very effective?” she asked, rhetorically.

Chief Justice Roberts wondered whether there is a reasonable expectation
of privacy in genetic material that may be easy to obtain in other
ways. “You disclose all of this intimate private information,” he said,
“when you take a drink of water and leave the glass behind.”

Much of the argument concerned whether DNA is like fingerprint evidence.
Kannon K. Shanmugam, a lawyer for Mr. King, said the two were
different, as fingerprints are generally used to identify suspects. DNA,
on the other hand, he said, is used for a purpose unrelated to the
arrest: to solve cold cases, he said.

Several justices seemed interested in a third way DNA could be used: to
assist judges in making bail determinations. For now, they were told,
turnaround times are too long to make that practicable.

But Michael R. Dreeben, a lawyer for the federal government, which
supported Maryland, said the day would soon arrive when DNA could be
analyzed in 90 minutes. Ms. Winfree agreed. “This is not science
fiction,” she said. “We are very, very close to that.”

Chief Justice Roberts said that left the court in a difficult position.
“How can I base a decision today on what you tell me is going to happen
in two years?” he asked.

For now, Justice Scalia said, the law’s purpose is “to catch the bad
guys, which is a good thing.” But, he added, “the Fourth Amendment
sometimes stands in the way.”